As a conventional image operating device that operates an image, particularly a map image, patent document 1, for example, discloses a technique in which an image operating device, configured by map image operation display means including a map image and an operation menu, performs an image operation on the map image by using an image operating method selected through the operation menu.
The image operating device uses a technique in which an image is operated by using a general pointing device (a single-point input device) such as a mouse. More specifically, when a user wishes to rotate an image included in a visible area clockwise, for example, he or she clicks a menu of “clockwise rotation” of the operation menu included in an area different from the visible area, thereby causing the image included in the visible area to be rotated clockwise accordingly.
[Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 10-254355
In the conventional image operating device, however, when the user cannot find a characteristic target object such as a road or a building in a displayed map image, it has been impossible for him or her to understand to what extent an image operation of enlargement and reduction, rotation or the like is performed on the map image. For example, in the case where a road extending in a vertical direction is displayed within the visible area and rotation is performed thereon, thereby causing the road displayed within the visible area to extend in a horizontal direction, the user believes that the image has been rotated by 90 degrees (or 270 degrees). However, depending on a displayed area or a scale, there may be a case where any target object, which can be such a landmark, does not exist within the visible area, and thus it has been difficult for the user to intuitively understand an amount of the image operation.
Furthermore, although in recent years, an image operating device comprising a multi-point input device, which is able to input multiple points, has emerged and it made it possible to perform an operation to allow the user to intuitively understand the amount of the image operation, the multi-point input device is exclusive and expensive, and has a complex configuration.
Therefore, the present invention solves the problem mentioned above. Specifically, an object of the present invention is to provide an image operating device, an image operating method and an image operating program, all of which are inexpensive and capable of allowing the user to understand to what extent the image operation of movement, enlargement and reduction, rotation or the like is performed on an image.